


Heal

by aislingthebard



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 22:04:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9627392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aislingthebard/pseuds/aislingthebard
Summary: A birthday gift to my bff <3Cassandra and Varric helping each other while being wounded





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scullyssahnequarkbroetchen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyssahnequarkbroetchen/gifts).



Varric’s ears rung with the cries of demons. For a moment, he lost consciousness. Trapped somewhere between reality and a green nightmare he fell. Claws tore at his skin and a thousand voices seemed to mock him. Bianca among them, flirting and laughing and looking bright in the darkness. He felt himself going mad but awoke as soon as he hit the ground with a dull thump.

“Shit.” Groaning, he forced himself on his feet and tried to look around without having to throw up. He stood in the middle of scorched grass and the air smelled of fire. Bleeding from different wounds all spread across his body, Varric had been better. Not to mention that his armor showed severed damage. They’d came across an especially nasty rift and the force of three pride demons brought them to retreat and run like fools.

Neither the Inquisitor nor Dorian were in sight. Cassandra was. Not moving. As fast as his wounded state allowed him, Varric crossed the distance between them.

“Shit, Seeker? Are you alive?” Cassandra face looked paler than usual. 

He slapped her cheeks.

“Come one, wake up.” 

He slapped her a bit harder. A groan then. Fantastic. Varric dared to hope that they would somehow escape and stay alive for a bit longer.

“Varric? I …” Ah, there she was. Her eyes focused on his face, looking confused and lost and very, very soft. All the hard lines of her usual scowl vanished. 

It made him highly uncomfortable. His nether regions found her to be quite attractive in such a beaten up state. Maybe not the blood but her tousled hair and heavy lided eyes. 

“Don’t look at me like that.” Cassandra’s arm didn’t sit quite right, but Varric forced himself to not inspect that too closely. The blood on her face and neck sufficed to make him sick to his stomach.

“What?” She wetted her lips. A subconscious gesture, surely, but so unlike the hardened Seeker that Varric felt a strange set of emotion. The demons had hit his head pretty hard, after all.

“I’m not going to kiss you.”

“What? Varric!” Cassandra blushed. 

At least it got some color back into her.

“We’re not in one of my books, Seeker. No one is going to kiss you awake and make the pain go away with passionate love.” He sounded rougher than he would have liked. Cassandra’s face fell and for a few seconds, she looked vulnerable again and young. Varric already regretted his choice of words, but well, that was him. For a storyteller he sure failed at finding the right words for such trying times. Also being near Cassandra seemed to multiply his weaknesses.

He grabbed her shoulder. “Lets get you patched up. I need your strong sword-arm in better shape. Lets check, if a few potions survived our fall.”

Of course not. There was broken glass and red liquid smeared on leather and fabric.

“Shit.” Luck was not on their side this day and Varric swore to talk to Dagna about inventing some sturdy bottles. Wood? Some kind of metal? Anything else but glass.

He helped Cassandra up and nearly buckled beneath the weight of the woman herself and her heavy armor. His knees felt too weak and shaken and she wasn’t in a much better shape. Walking became difficult after a few steps, because Cassandra steadied herself on his shoulder. She smelled of blood and weapon oil, even a bit of parchment. Though, Varric couldn’t quite put his finger on the later scent. Right now, it seemed strangely comforting.

“We need to craft a cast for my arm.” She held it in an awkward angle in front of her chest. Varric still didn’t want to look at the bone and flesh. Without a healer in their party, fighting became tedious. He really missed Blondie. Even after all the shit that he’d pulled and the people he’d killed. No one was without fault in a war between mages and templars and Anders knew how to heal basically everything from a common cold to smashed bones and even death at times.

Cassandra started to look pale again. 

They needed to find some shelter and maybe water. Both of them wouldn’t be able to make their way back to Skyhold in such a shape.

Hopefully the Inquisitor had kicked the demons back into the abyss by now. And hopefully they’d be found before nightfall. The Hinterlands could be a treacherous place. Murderous goats not the stranges enemy to encounter.

“I’m actually not that good at crafting. Should have asked some of my dwarven brethren.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Well, you’re the only dwarf I have, so you have to do.”

“Charming as ever, Seeker.” Not that she was exactly in a position to mock him, with her weight on his shoulders and her body creaking with every step.

“Ugh.”

He laughed. “Glad you’re back to being yourself. Was really worried there for a second.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t waste our breaths with talking.”

Oh. 

Varric seemed pretty sure that he’d used that line in his books, but under very different circumstances. Better not to mention that. Or think about it. Shit. He thought about it. What was happing to him? He’d come to respect her during the last months, and after he forgave her for stabbing his book, but this? Totally different. Some masochistic part of himself felt satisfied to be close to her, to feel her hand on him.

And he was too old for that shit and thought about writing a letter to Hawke, asking her about advice. She’d probably send back a letter filled with lots of ‘ha-ha’s.

Cassandra showed him branches and asked him to tear some of her under tunic to shreds. He tried not to think about the taut muscles beneath the fabric and the way she still tried to put some distance between them. His touch wasn’t as unwelcome as she would have liked.

He knelt at her side, close to her warm skin and put her hand into his. His fingers felt clumsy and thick, as he fastened the makeshift cast around her arm. This should have been easier. He wasn’t young any more and used to fighting and taking care of friends, but this whole episode robbed him of his strength.

She winced a few times and bit her lip to suppress any further sign of discomfort.

Varric used the strips of fabric to put the brances into place. “Hit me, if I hurt you.”

She smiled. “Gladly.”


End file.
